


The Drip

by Anonymous



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Cutting, Existential Crisis, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, References to Drugs, Self-Harm, Tour Bus, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 06:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19806544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: cody’s anxious and his coping mechanisms arefuckedon tour. noel doesn't get it exactly, but he could probably relate. ///read the tags n trigger warnings, bud!





	The Drip

What they don’t tell you in therapy (Cody assumes, he’s never been) is that fucking up is _romantic._ Nobody makes art about guys who cut out caffiene because it makes them anxious, exercise regularly to stay mellow, call Kelsey to say “I’m tired and upset and I’m not really sure why” when the mood hits and then go read a book until whatever self-destructive urges have passed. Timothee Chalamet wouldn’t even _see_ that script, let alone read it, because nobody’s fucking writing about that shit. 

Recovery is _boring._ Waiting for the shitty feelings to pass, sitting around and doing grounding exercises for days _sucks._ Breaking apart a disposable safety razor in a tour bus bathroom, though - well that’s a plot point, baby! That’s fucking doing something, and Cody’s never been good at not _doing something._

He can pretend for a while, act like normalcy is a commitment he can keep - for years, even. But this is better in the moment. A Snickers bar after a longass juice cleanse. 

The plastic cracks, finally, falls to brittle shards under his persistent fingertips with a crack loud enough he freezes for a moment, fleeting worry someone might’ve heard (if anyone did it’s just more road noise - their bus is fucking _loud)._ The thumbnail he’s been using to pry glued pieces apart is fucked up now but that’s whatever - Noel will roast him about his manicure again but that’s old material, familiar territory: _Cody’s Grooming Is Bad,_ part 25 in a series of infinity. 

He chews the broken bit the rest of the way off, spits broken nail fragments into the sink. That’s good, that’s gritty - an indie filmmaker’s take on suffering. And maybe that’s what Cody craves more than anything now, if he’s honest: a narrative, pain somebody’d want to see on a screen. 

Anything that’s not just _him,_ failing to cope with the same normal human adulthood existence shit everybody else manages to take in stride. 

Just him: too undisciplined to buckle down and power through the boring good boy coping routine that would carry him forward until his mood improves again. Too impatient. 

He can’t even stick to his diet plan for three days on the road. The instant gratification urge will always win once he’s tipsy and faced with a menu. 

An hour from now he’ll be ashamed of himself, maybe. (Probably.) An hour from now he’ll regret working himself up to this, like it hasn’t been days (weeks, maybe) in the making. But right now? He’s got a wholeass meal in front of him, a ritual, an activity. The promise of satisfaction. 

The middle blade is bent but it’s out now, deceptively small separated from its mates and its blue plastic casing. 

Cody thinks he should feel detached, wants to feel calm because that’s the right aesthetic - but the truth is that his heart races, his fingers clamp too tight around that little strip of perforated metal. He feels almost manic, wants this over with as much as he wanted to drag the moment out just seconds ago. Maybe he’s worried he’ll change his mind, maybe he’s aware that what’s coming is the part that’s permanent, his main opportunity to fuck it up. 

He already stripped out of his jeans. His legs have long been the throwaway part of him, canvas for impulsive tattoos and the older scars under them, faded nearly illegible now. When he was younger he used to punch the tops of his thighs, hard, straight down in his desk chair to keep focus, do something with his own energy and knotted up anxiety about - who even knows what anymore. Homework? College applications? It feels stupid in retrospect, just like this probably will one day. 

Bruises were easier to brush off at swim practice - hell, he collected bruises _from_ swim practice. But at some point they weren’t enough anymore. At some point they started to feel like a cop out, pussy shit. 

Cody can’t help cringing at the older scars where they criss cross, wondering how many teammates gossipped about Cody and his waterproof bandaids and his alleged trouble with neighborhood cats, all his exam week accidents and the too-obvious cover stories - his attention whore bullshit. His drama. The fact that nobody ever called him out to his face doesn’t mean nobody ever _knew._

There’s this ambiguous space Cody finds himself stuck in a lot, between wanting to be seen and wanting to fit in, slide under the radar. Wanting to be coddled but not wanting to be exposed where he’s the most vulnerable. It’s a tension he’s still not sure how to handle, almost 10 years into adult life. (Shouldn’t he be better at this by now?) 

Cody shoves that shit aside and finally does something decisive: props his left foot on the toilet bowl seat and makes three quick slashes across. He moves fast because he’s learned not to hesitate, that if he thinks too much his hand will wobble or the angle will go wrong (or the depth will change, he’ll go too deep or bitch out and pull back, too shallow) and he’ll end up with scars he hates, altogether the wrong look. 

He gets it right this time. Like riding a bike, the technique always comes back. 

Blood wells up, red beads in a neat line. It’s _pretty._ One droplet swells and then breaks on his fingertip when he reaches down to touch. It tastes a little coppery on his tongue, gross but as much a part of the ritual as anything. 

The calm hits then, finally - he _did that._ He feels clear now, or imagines he does. Adrenaline-awake, crisp like ice water. 

He stands like that for a long time or just a few moments, watching himself bleed. All there is to do is let the blood slow and turn tacky in the air, for his body to put all that fucking anxiety energy into healing. He’s as close to blank as his mind ever gets - he forgets to even worry about the time. 

After who knows how many minutes there’s a knock on the door, Matt’s voice barely muffled by thin plywood and laminate. “Cody, you fall in? Hurry up, I need to take a shit.” 

A little more adrenaline - he’s nowhere close to getting caught, but he still gets a jolt, realizing how long he must’ve been. “Yeah man, just a sec.” Cody wipes his thigh with a rough palm and it stings the way he knew it would. Rinses his hands and yanks his jeans back on (tried and true habit - it takes a lot for blood to soak through denim, but he’s also gonna hate his life when the scabs glue his skin to the fabric and break every time he moves). Jams the broken puzzle pieces of disposable razor back into his toiletries case, something to deal with later. 

Quick. Discreet. Easy. He heads back out into the world, warns Matt to light a match for the smell with what he hopes is a convincing smirk. 

When people talk about having mixed feelings it really isn’t a smooth paint palette blend, middle gradient between black and white. It’s a trail mix jumble, chunks of smug M&Ms and complacency raisins and a handful of self-loathing shame peanuts and whatever else can’t be identified neatly. The metaphor is _dogshit,_ but Cody’s coasting on endorphins so who can blame him? 

He sits on the couch up front, part of the group again but separated by his secrets. A trail mix of a person - the parts his friends see, other parts his audience sees and then the ugliest parts he can’t ever show anybody. 

He’s balancing his computer on his lap, a shield. If he hits the Shift key hard enough his leg throbs. 

Noel says something and Cody laughs because he can sense he’s supposed to, on autopilot. He can’t help being a little distracted still - maybe the blood _is_ soaking through his jeans. Maybe he should slip back to his bunk and check. 

The high is wearing off already, fantasy giving way to real life logistics problems. He wonders when he’ll get up the nerve to tell Kelsey, admit his crimes before she sees them for herself in a few weeks. Whenever the topic comes up she uses careful terms like “self injury” and “in recovery,” even though he told her it was just something stupid he did years ago, found a way to quit (years ago) once he decided to grow up. She’ll call this a _relapse._ Maybe she’ll suggest therapy again, make him download some app. 

Maybe that’s what he wants. To be led by the hand through all the required steps like a child, to have someone else do the hard work for him because he’s proved he _needs_ it, hell, he’s _bleeding._

“Hey, man.” Noel settles in beside him, knocks their knees together and jostles his leg. Cody tries not to recoil. He’s been too inside himself the past few minutes, the past hour (longer than that if he’s honest, he’s spent whole days thinking about cutting again, about whether he could and whether he should and then _how,_ every angle and the best time and whether it would fuck up his performances and...okay yeah, he’s been distracted for a while). He hasn’t been a good friend. 

Noel though, he’s almost always a good friend. “You’ve been quiet for a bit, you good?” He says it casually, voice light and low enough not to draw attention. He’s so _good_ at this shit, notices so much. Cody has to wonder if anyone pays as much attention to Noel as Noel does to everyone else. He knows _he_ doesn’t (but he also knows his self-assessment skills are fucked right now, so who knows). 

_You good?_ When Noel asks, he really _asks._ He’s not just saying it to fill the air. 

_Yeah, of course_ is what Cody means to say but he hesitates, can’t quite meet Noel’s eyes to lie convincingly. Finally says “Um. I’m a little off I guess.” 

Noel just waits, which is infuriating but always so effective at getting Cody to say more than he means to. Cody’s leg aches. He presses down on the corner of his laptop and feels the answering twinge, a second heartbeat. “My routine’s fucked up and I’m not...coping right.”

That’s a lot to put on a friend. “I’m probably just drinking too much coffee,” he adds at the end because he feels exposed, and that’s true, the caffiene thing, but it’s also benign. It’s safe, the shared language of their anxiety bullshit. 

Noel nods. He could say what Cody would probably default to, a sentence like _well you know I’m always here for you_ or something else off a greeting card, but he doesn’t. “I’ve been smoking too much pot,” he says, and when Cody looks up Noel’s eyes are on his own hands in his lap. “I’m not sleeping right on this fucking bus and it’s easier than tossing and turning and trying to meditate when I know I could take a couple hits and pass out, you know?” 

“Yeah.” Cody knows. He knows he’ll sleep well tonight, finally, whether real exhaustion or placebo effect from the way he imagines all his body’s stress energy redirected into healing the wound on his leg. “It’s hard not to take shortcuts sometimes.” 

Noel nods, wipes a hand over his chin. He looks tired. He needs a shave, but right now Cody doesn’t have a razor to loan him. “All this...touring and shit feels like some kind of time out from my real life back home. So it’s easy to make excuses not to do what I should when I’m...keyed up.” 

“Oh. Yeah.” Yeah. It’s weird - Cody gets caught up in all the ways he and Noel are different sometimes that he forgets how much they’re the same, how much the stress of touring, being _on_ so much must wear Noel down, too. He thinks about Noel’s way of getting high after some shows, slumping on the back sofa glazed over and frustratingly shitty at keeping up a conversation. Kind of like Cody right now. “I guess that’ll be a bigger problem if we keep doing this long term, huh.” 

“Yeah.” Noel looks out at the highway for a while, long flat stretch of farmland and empty blue sky. “Not to sound cheesy, but I’m glad I don’t have to figure all this out alone.” 

Cody has to swallow before he can find the voice to reply. “Yeah.” 

**Author's Note:**

> obviously this is all fiction, not meant to say anything about the short kings' real lives. go ahead and throw an anonymous f in those comments if you've ever had a relapse and projected it onto ur fave internet personality instead of going back to therapy 😘


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